Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Well, this is my last visit to Thessaloniki, at least to the appartment we had rented for our sons who do their studies here. Both of them are finishing this year and I am here to pack up a few of their belongings to send back home. No more excuses for a little break from island life and spending some time with my bloggerfriend Ariadne. I was lucky enough this time to see her husband Themis in action with his shadow puppet performance. Karagkiozis is a well known and well loved figure in the traditional shadow puppet theatre. The play was the famous "The emperor's clothes" adapted into "The sultan's clothes". It was held in a most beautiful neoclassical building that houses a kindergarten.

The new generation of puppeteers, helping Themis.

In the afternoon we visited the antique market. Although there were many beautiful items and I was very tempted, I managed not to buy anything. I am focussing on decluttering, not an easy thing for me.

Here are some of the stalls of the market. The photos I grabbed from their facebook page

Monday, March 25, 2013

And as is tradition there is also a special dish for this day: fried salted cod with garlic sauce which we enjoyed for lunch.

I also learned something new today. Another one of the many superstitious "advices" of my mother in law:
"On this day you must never bring anything green in the house. If you do, your house will fill with ants in the summer".
Her list of advices is long, very long. They are very old and most of them are also very peculiar. But I love her and take the advices with a pinch of salt. Maybe I shall write a post about some of the advices, I am sure they will make you smile.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Such a glorious day today with a lot of sun and finally a smell of spring in the air. I spent all day working in the garden and cleared up lots of woodcuttings that had been drying for a while. I don't usually light a bonfire on the beach but there was so much, it would be impossible to dispose it in another way. It wasn't even so easy to get a good fire going but eventually it started burning and took care of all the old cuttings.

It looks a bit messy, but after everything was burnt I cleaned it up nicely.

Daisies are enjoying the sun too

And to top of a perfect day, I had my first swim this year. The watertemperature was 16 degrees, not too cold.

That was more than enough exercise for one day so now I shall put my feet up, have a nice herbal tea and relax.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

At the risk of getting boring about this subject, but it is something I am very passionate about, I just want to share the brandnew campaign we just launched. It is all about getting a truck for our Foxes to be able to collect all those bottle the coming summer season.

The old car was donated to us and served us well but sadly is beyond repair and has been laid to rest.

With this campaign we hope to collect the necessary cash for another truck. My (blog) friend Ariadne was the first to pledge a great donation and I want to thank her so much for this!

I just returned from another visit to my boys in Thessaloniki and had the opportunity again to spend some lovely time with Ariadne. At he moment I am with my friend Alexandra in Volos and probably returning home tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Last saturday we celebrated the 2nd birthday of our Green Fox. A celebration in Greek style with lots of food, wine and dancing to the live music. We had a busy time preparing, that was one of the reasons I had disappeared again from blogland, but it was worth all the work and effort.

We managed to raise some well needed cash for our project. Thanks to all the volunteers and other friends of the Green Fox who helped us in organizing this special night.

A beautiful birthdaycake made by one of our members.

The first band that came and played for us: "Groom Therapy"

The second and more traditional band with an amazing bouzouki!

Sirtaki

After all the guests left, we had our own little "after"party with of course : dancing on the table!

Happy birthday Green Fox and many more years of plastic bottle collecting!

Monday, February 11, 2013

I started it with a nice blue wool and crochethook 4,5 but unfortunately I had only one ball of wool. I knew it wasn't going to be enough and the wool is not available on the island....so why did I start it with this wool?

Probably just because I can do the whole thing again with another wool. So, last week I started all over with another yarn I have in my stash. Thinner this time so I crochet with crochet hook 2,5 and it is also not my favourite colour but I have a few more skeins of this one so I hope there will be enough although it looks like Wieke has a lot of patterns for us so I don't know how fas I will get with this wool. We'll see. It is fun to do and gives me some practice at the same time.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Today my eldest turned 21! I wish him with all my heart happiness, joy and prosperity.
Times are extra hard here in Greece and the young generation has been robbed of its dreams and hopes for a bright future, let alone careers and much more. I have never written much about the crisis because I try to keep a positive state of mind about it. But it is part of our lives and we are confronted by it on a daily basis.

But......."nothing is forever, everything changes" or: Panta rei is a conclusion I think everbody will make at some point in his life.

So, the crisis is not here to stay!
Happy birthday to my first born for this special day!

Anyway, back to 21. A couple of weeks ago there were quite a few bloggers that posted pictures of themselves at 21. I thought this was a nice idea but already knew that it would be hard for me to find a picture of myself at 21. And I didn't.
The closest are the following:

Santorini 1978 (I am 20)

Corfu 1980 (I am 22)

As you can tell Greece was already part of my life then. In those days I was in a relationship with an Irish man and we lived in the Netherlands, Utrecht. I worked in a travel agency and was quite content with my life. Although Greece was my favorite holiday destination I never dreamt that I would actually live there.

As I said....panta rei

After going through the old photoalbums looking for a picture of myself and in combination with my eldest turning 21 today I feel rather nostalgic and a little sad because

I wonder will my boys get to experience the same happy go lucky feeling I had at that age?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Early this morning I brought my eldest to the ferry as he is leaving for a little trip to my homecountry. He will be travelling all day and arrive late tonight in Amsterdam airport where my very lovely aunt and uncle will pick him up.

I can't believe he will be 21 in a few days!

He and his brother have turned out into 2 wonderful and handsome young men and I am really proud of them both.
Of course they would kill me if I would dare to put a picture of them on here.
So I just show you a disguised picture of my eldest as he went harpoonfishing yesterday

Of course Lucky was there to keep a watchful eye

Where is he going?

O, I'll spend my time with chewing up some old cloth I find laying around

Yeah, that feels good and now it's time for some.....

digging.....

You never know what might be under all that sand

.
I hope my eldest is going to have a great time. Lucky and I miss him already.